The Federal High Court has granted a prayer by the Department of State Services (DSS) to expedite proceedings in the trial of the suspected mastermind of the Aug. 26, 2011, bombing of the UN Building in Abuja, Khalid Al-Barnawi and 4 others.
Justice Emeka Nwite granted the request after the DSS lawyer, Alex Iziyon, SAN, moved the application on the ground that the service is prepared to ensure that the case is determined expeditiously.
In the application, which was not opposed by the respective defendants’ counsel, parties would be allowed to watch video recordings presented by the DSS to prove that the extrajudicial statements given by the suspects were done voluntarily, as against the claim of some of the defendants.
They are among others, accused of being members of Ansaru terrorist group, also known as Jama’atu Ansarul Muslimina Fi Biladis Sudan.
The defendants are also alleged to have conspired among themselves to carry out acts of terrorism between 2011 and 2013 in Sokoto, Kebbi, Bauchi, Borno, Gombe and other states in the northern part of the country.
The U.S. had, in 2012, placed a $5 million (£3.5m) bounty on Al-Barnawi’s head after branding him one of three Nigerian “specially designated global terrorists.”
Ansaru is said to be ideologically aligned to al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb and is also accused of killing a number of Westerners.
Ansaru was reported to have claimed that it carried out an attack on a maximum security prison in Abuja in 2012 during which dozens of inmates were freed. (NAN)
